Preparing for College Applications

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Sheet 1: Tracks due dates and automatically changes color based on how many days left. Records:

  • Subject

  • Task

  • Due Date

  • Days Remaining (Auto-Calculated)

Sheet 2: Helps students track their high school careers and inventory their experiences so far. Autocalculates time spent per activity or task. Great for tracking hours. Records:

  • Date

  • Time Began

  • Time End

  • Time Spent (Duration Autocalculator)

  • Type

  • Task or Activity

  • What did you learn about yourself?

  • How did you contribute?

  • Skills

Sheet 3: Helps students find underlying values, motifs, or themes that can help tell their story. Records:

  • Year

  • Course

  • Your Rating

  • Challenge and how you got through it

  • Strengths or Favorite Skills

  • What will you remember from the experience?

Exit Tickets: 4 questions, same exit ticket link

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My daily exit ticket is the same Google Form every time.

I show the link as a QR code next to that day’s exit ticket question.

Each exit ticket has 4 prompts:

Exit Ticket # <displayed on board>
  1. How well did you understand the lesson?
    1. Mostly. I can teach someone else.
    2. So-so. I can figure it out.
    3. Barely. Help!
  2. How are you feeling today?
    1. Great
    2. OK
    3. Terrible
    4. IDK
  3. <Content question of day>
  4. Comments and/or questions?

Scoring: 1 pt for attempt, 2 pts for accuracy

Students appreciate the predictable procedure, I get a backup log of how we are doing, and can alter the question as needed for each class.

The exit ticket is the same link every time, and students get into the habit of assessing themselves and also using the link to make up missing exit tickets if they are absent or late.

Distance Learning & Special Education Tools

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Federal Guidelines regarding the rights of students labeled under special education programs boil down to “at least they’re alive!” or more generously, “do what you can.”

Here’s a roundup of some stuff that’s far from “what we can”:

Template: Distance Learning Syllabus

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I wrote this fall syllabus for teaching my 10th grade biology class 100% distance learning this year and other teachers wanted to use it. I’ve taken out most of the identifying information and highlighted stuff, but feel free to use my policies as well or change them, and pass it on for those who find it helpful.



Free Web App: 800+ Prompts for Community Circles, Journals, & Warmups

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I made a free, searchable webapp for 800+ (hopefully trauma-aware) prompts for community circles, journals, warmups, closings, etc. You can add it as a button on your phone homepage, too. It's linked to a Google spreadsheet I keep updated, so feel free to suggest changes or additions. Not all of the questions I like, but I have included just because it's an index.

If Glide ever removes its services, you can access the Google Sheets document by clicking here.

Database: "Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, & Sexuality in Nature & People"

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I support teaching scientific discovery as a continuous process of testing and revising our models for explaining natural phenomenon. Every challenge to our existing knowledge offers an exciting learning opportunity for better understanding our world. Here is a brief inventory of examples from Stanford biologist Joan Roughgarden’s Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People from University of California Press, 2013 ed.

I am grateful for the privilege to openly discuss these many examples of the myriad spectrum of sexuality, polymorphisms, and gendered behavior in living things. (For anyone who has had their identity silenced or erased, what is “natural” is far more “queer” than anyone can imagine.)

My inventory of more than 200 species uses Roughgarden’s terminology, but all typos and misunderstandings are my own; please comment with corrections. I’ll continue cleaning up the formatting.